Amazon Authors! What's Up With All The Serials?

Yes Harry Potter was an exceptional example of a successful series, but if you're not a known name, then your series won't be worth the paper that it was written on.

Yeah, I'm kind of cynical about them, but hear me out first.

Within minutes, my cat can become an author on Amazon and publish whatever she wants to basically. I don't have a problem with that at all. It's just that publishing serials doesn't work for the average reader.

When you're new, you want to write an amazing story from beginning to end. When you write a serial, you don't want to leave out so much that the reader HAS to purchase the second book in order to find out what happens. If this is your first time, what if you suck? You're almost guaranteeing that they won't come back.

New writers need to find their audiences in different  ways than teasing their audiences with books that are sixty six pages long and that have titles that say this is "Book #1 out of 60 of the Dragon Knight Baby Specials"

Huh?

Have you even built an audience yet with the more  traditional route?
What makes you so sure that I'm going to stick with you long enough to read through the second book all the way to your sixtieth?

It's presumptious.

Stick with your first book and knock them dead with that one. Join book clubs that deal with the subject matter that you're writing in. Smooze book club owners. Talk with other writers. Utilize social media. Create a blog. Read other books in the same genre. Read books in other genres. Completely immerse yourself in the world of writing. Find out what the experts are doing. Find out what the idiots are doing and then, don't do that.

Then if you think you've got what it takes to write a trilogy (and God help you if you don't) go for it. It better be damn good and damn worth it.

A writer should never go into a project thinking that they want to create a series off the bat unless they are under a contract to do so. You, as the inexperienced writer with no base, have no clue that people will give a crap about what you write. You could very well be wasting your time.

Write that first novel but leave a little room at the end to possibly create a teaser. Then wait damnit. Wait. Check the reviews. Have other people professionally critique your work. Mull some ideas over in your head for a possible part two of the series.

Have you ever seen any of the Pirates of The Caribbean movies? The first one was genius but then the scripts became some overloaded with such nonsense that even Johnny Depp threw up his hands and said, "I don't even know what this means!"

You're in the business of writing and entertaining people. You want them sitting on the edge of their beds while their spouses are asleep waiting to jump up at any moment and scare the daylights out of them. You want them rooting for your characters! You don't want the main character in the middle of the scene that YOU wrote saying, "What the fuck is THIS shit?" It's not good.

 Concentrate on what makes a great story. Concentrate on how to tell a great story. Then go from there. If you're new in the game, the trilogy will come much further down the line. Captivate your readers and then you shall build a great and loyal audience. They will follow you wherever you go from there.

Bad Writing When You're Not A Writer

You want to know the wonderful thing about self publishing?

Non-writers can now be writers! First, let me clarify.

I was browsing on the Kindle store for books that I might have been interested in when I came across a book written by an undertaker. One review that was posted gave the book one star for bad writing.

The authors tried to make an entertaining compilation of stories covering the entire mortuary process (removal through funeral), but the stories are rather dull and filled with impertinent information (e.g., long background histories of some of the writers, and extraneous details regarding the setting or unimportant background characters). I can only assume it is because the people who wrote them are not writers, they are undertakers....

She pretty much answered her own question with this one. Not everyone can be a writer, but does that mean that we silence the voices of those who aren't? I've read books from people of all walks of life. Sometimes, it's not about brilliant writing, flowing prose, and a gigantic vocabulary.

It's about the life experience that they are sharing. Reading about other people's life experiences can make your own very rich. Could some people benefit from an editor or even another writer to help the? Sure they could. But many people aren't really concerned about a few typos or a comma splice here and there.

I feel as if my life has truly been enriched by reading the stories of cancer patients, the Amish, Loyalists in the American Revolution, slaves in the Civil War, paramedics, doctors, lawyers, police officers, fireman, people with Lupus, serial killers, dentists, stockbrokers, people sold into sexual slavery, drug addicts, white supremacists, black supremacists, prisoners on Death Row, celebrities, etc.

Some of these stories were full of errors, but I didn't let that stop me from receiving the message. What we don't understand, we fear. What we fear, we destroy. Learning about other lives will make yours much richer.

Writing Historical Fiction: An Inside Look To Writing Hannah

Authenticity!!!!!! That's the number one thing that authors obsess about when writing historical fiction. If someone asked you to write a historical fiction piece about the year 2012, well, I'd doubt that you would have a problem with that....provided that you're reading this relatively recently.

Now try writing about Medieval France. Unless you have an obsession with that period of time and know everything about it (which would really work in your favor) you'd have to do research....and lots of it.

Research? What language did they use when they spoke? Murder will out is a phrase used in Shakespeare's time but your character stating Blessings in disguise will cause your readers to scratch their heads. Unless your book is centered around the American Revolution.

What type of clothing did they wear? Food? Children drinking small beer in Colonial America would be considered the norm but would be frowned on in 2012. The water wasn't all that great and only a fool would sit there and drink it. Great way to get sick, I might add.

All of that must be taken in consideration. I did a great deal of research for this time period and I only pray that Hannah feels authentic to the reader. What I would highly recommend is to read plenty of books from that time period to get a feel for the time period that you're writing for. There are also great websites out there that help you with clothing, speaking phrases, and daily activities in the time periods that you're writing about.

It also helps to use a great note taking application to keep track of all the websites and notes that you're going to take. My favorite application is EVERNOTE ! I use it to clip websites, links, pictures, etc. that I will need to work.

Hannah is coming soon to amazon.com!

EEEEEKKKK! NOWHERE WILL BE HITTING THE STANDS IN HOURS!

My third book and I'm so excited, I could burst. At this moment, I submitted Nowhere for publishing on Amazon. I am excited to hear what people think about it. I've been working on Nowhere longer than I worked on Sex Therapy. It was just a draft that lingered on my hard drive for months.

It is very rewarding to see it come to life and become a whole story. I am excited! So excited, I can barely sleep right now.  Hopefully the Amazon interface isn't having too many issues and it can be published soon.

Until then....I wait....patiently.

Tea of the Day: Blueberry Acai

Almost Finished With Second Drafts

I am almost done with my third book, "Nowhere"and hopefully it will be available in September in this year.

One thing I would stress to new authors is this is the time to go over your book with a fine toothed comb. This is the time that you need to catch errors and grammatical issues. Don't be so in love with your words and the story that your mind will overlook the imperfections.

Your readers will take you to task over such issues. While you may not think that its a big thing, it is to your readers. There are lots of voracious readers out there and they feel cheated if you don't give it every thing you've got. They are out there spending their hard earned money on your books.

I ran across an Amazon forum one day where the authors were complaining about Amazon and how it was taking too long to update and publish their titles. It was taking 48 hours or more when normally it is 75 percent less of that time.

Many authors, including myself, would upload a manuscript, notice a mistake in it later, then try to upload a new one. Because of this glitch, people were buying the wrong book instead of the one with the errors fixed.

This led to horrible reviews of readers complaining that the book had many spelling errors and typos. My thing? GET IT FREAKING RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Read your book over and over again like a person looking at the book with fresh eyes. Put it down for a week and then read every single word again before you hit that PUBLISH button.

Get it right the first time and correct those errors before your readers string you up by the neck.






Tea of the day: Acai Berry and Blueberry Tea

Writing While In Pain

I love writing. I'm so stressed out with everything, especially my health, that I feel like I have nowhere else to turn. Writing is it.

But I've lost focus over these past few weeks. Dealing with my disability, home life, and worried about my future has started to take its toll.

I can't help but watch television, even  commercials, and see beautiful, laughing carefree adults just living their lives. Sometimes, I want so bad to be apart of that.

Just a week ago, laughing was something that I couldn't do. Singing was out of the question. Holding a conversation with someone was difficult because of  severe lung obstruction disease.

If you're reading this, don't ever take your health for granted. If you smoke, stop. If you eat unhealthy, stop. If you use drugs, stop. It's not worth it in the end. Don't be one of those idiots that say, "You gotta die from something, right?" You don't have to die on a ventilator. You don't have to die from overdose. You don't have to die from a heart attack.

I had the most scary experience in my life May 14, 2012. I was NO longer in control of my body. I no longer had the say so of whether I lived or died. If you continue to do some of the things you do, taking your health for granted then you need to start writing a will now. Start telling your loved ones how you really feel. Because you won't be around much longer if you abuse your health and take it for granted.

Writing is one of the few things that I can do without getting short of breath nowadays and I never smoked a cigarette or did an illegal drug in my life. I don't eat fried foods and eat plenty of vegetables, fish, chicken, etc. I don't have the healthiest diet, but it's not the worst.

Tread carefully.

What's Next?

Currently, I'm working on so many projects that I want to eventually publish, it's making my head spin. But I take it all in stride. Writing is what I love to do. Reading comes second to that. I try to write something every day but I get so distracted by things that don't matter. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't get so distracted by the television or my obsession with Googling.

I can google all day long before I realize that the day is now over. Hopefully I can finish these projects. Stay tuned, got some great stories coming up.


Tea of the Day: NONE..

Evernote

Evernote is where I keep ideas for stories and articles that I write. It will save entire clippings of items and pictures that you find on the internet and store it for you. I have seven different notebooks in my Evernote that EFFORTLESSLY sync to my Android phone and computer! Even my iPad! I recommend it for writers to use if you want to keep your notes organized. I used to keep all of my notes in Microsoft One Note. Ingenious program but I had it installed on my infamous Dell laptop. I lost everything, including some notes for upcoming screenplays that I've been working on. I had the plots and characters fleshed out from here to next Sunday...all gone.